Felidae: The Gate of Hell
by DarkerThanEvanescence
Summary: Francis has relocated, again. This time, however, he's in a new country, a place where the laws of nature and logic are turned completely upside down. Felidae centered, the Darker than BLACK references will be explained.
1. Chapter 1

I've recently started to believe my human companion Gus was either dropped one too many times as a child or was born with some sort of mental deficiency. Just the other day, he had stormed up to me, pointedly interrupting a much needed nap, and flaunting about a small paper booklet.

"Francis, hey Francis, look at what I've got," he had said to me, getting a few meters too far into my personal space, but I could tell whatever it was had excited him by the playful glint in his wide set eyes. He had held the packet still long enough for me to read what was printed on the hard cover, just underneath the eagle emblem.

_Passport? _

"We're movin' buddy!" he had exclaimed, practically jumping up and down.

The prospect of moving was no foreign matter, pardon the pun, and the event occurred on a yearly, if not twice yearly, basis. In fact, we hadn't even unpacked our belongings; the stacks of cardboard boxes were still piled up against the walls of our townhouse, untouched.

This however, was the first time Gustav had suggested leaving our good old country of Germany. Where did he expect to go? I highly doubted he was multilingual. Hell, he was barely proficient in the one language he _did_ know. It was also equally unlikely the natives wrote in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, the only thing I could say my companion actually had a knack for.

"Dare I ask where we're moving to?" I had questioned even though I knew it was a futile attempt at communication. I just hoped my intention, rather than my words, got through to that oaf.

He had flipped to the first page and had held it out to me like a trophy. My inquisitive feline mind couldn't resist sneaking a peak. My eyeballs had nearly flown out of their sockets. Please, please, please tell me he isn't serious. This is just a joke, a terrible, terrible joke. But it wasn't. What was Gustav thinking?

"We're going to Japan!" he had felt the need to announce to me. Unbeknownst to him, I actually could read, unlike most of my species. Maybe I shouldn't say that. In my lifetime I did meet the rare intellectual, like Ambrosius and Pascal, respectively.

My head had swum. What possessed my companion to leave our cozy country and go to Japan? Sure, another European nation I could imagine, like Austria or Switzerland perhaps. But to travel across the globe to Eastern Asia was another matter entirely.

And that, my friends, was how I ended up where I am now, stuck in the cargo compartment of a jumbo jet, with claustrophobia starting to set in and nausea threatening to expel the contents of my stomach. The worst part of it all was the fact that the plane hadn't even taken off yet.

I was cramped in a small cat carrier, surrounded my other displeased brothers and sisters. It was hot, stuffy, and hard to breathe. The air was stale and smelled like a combination of sweaty laundry, wax, and tennis balls. The heat made me pant, and with my mouth wide open, the unpleasant scent found its way to my Jacobson's organ. Now, I could not only smell it, but taste it too.

I figured if I fell asleep, by the time I awoke, the plane would already be landing. Bad idea. The ghostly image of the samurai, the one that Archie had painted on our wall years ago, haunted my mind relentlessly. I tossed and turned, but the memory persisted until I dropped into restless, dark unconsciousness.

******Poor Francis. He's already been through so much... I****f you like it, hate it, or found any errors, leave a review!**


	2. Chapter 2

"Come on Francis. Time to wake up." Great, just the thing I'd like to hear filtering down through my subconscious. I didn't want to awaken, but I cracked my eyes open slightly anyways. They pinched shut almost right away from the onslaught of brightness, wincing. Pupils contracted, I tried again.

We were no longer in the airport, thank God. The room I was in was small and clearly Japanese. Filling almost an entire wall was a large window and the floor I was lying on was made of tatami mats.

"Isn't this so cool?" Gustav babbled. _Not really_, I was tempted to say, but I knew he would take it as me agreeing with him. I was still firmly against this whole affair. I was homesick already, like a vacation that I couldn't wait to end.

The room suddenly closed in on me. The walls loomed overwhelmingly. The sounds of the cicadas were deafening, piercing my eardrums incessantly. The only thing I could smell was the pollution of a nearby road, clogging my throat and nostrils. I had to get out of here, get somewhere to clear my head. This was all too much.

I sprang to my feet and dashed to the door, rearing up on my hind legs and clawing at the handle, wailing. Gustav took his time, of course, oblivious to my panic. He bumbled up to the doorway, and the instant the entrance was open, I was out like a shot. My paws pattered down the staircase in a haze and I leaped atop the nearby brick wall.

Then I ran, just ran. With my lungs burning and my feet pounding, I paid little attention to the buzzing between my ears. Shapes and colors blurred past, things I knew were trees, cars, buildings, signs, lasting only mere seconds. I could feel the euphoria pulsing through my veins, the prowess of my muscles sliding smoothly across each other. It was pure bliss.

By the time I caught the mind to stop and find out where I was, it was too late. I was too far from my old home. Now I was usually pretty good with directions, but being in this city all of 18 or so hours, I hadn't the time to figure the layout. I could be anywhere.

My first impulse was to look for a familiar street name, but I soon gave up, mainly because I couldn't read those repetitive symbols that somehow meant something. Well, I at least knew the general direction I came from. If push came to shove, I could always try to follow my own scent back.

Scratch that. As soon as the thought came to mind, a single drop of water landed square on my nose. My gaze turned skyward and I witnessed the beginning of a torrential downpour. In seconds, everything was drenched, not to mention any trace of my smell was gone.

I quickly decided that I didn't want to be out in this storm and hastily took cover down an alleyway. Despite reeking of garbage and urine, it was a better alternative to being soaked in the rainstorm.

I turned the corner and was nearly blown off by feet by a blast of icy wind. Disorientated briefly, it took me a moment to register what I was seeing. I was accustomed to the mutilated bodies of my brothers and sisters, but this was something else.

It was a human; at least I think it was. It, or rather he, was lying sprawled out over the pavement. At my approach, his attention shifted to me. A strange red glow emanated from the depths of his eyes as he reached a bloody hand out toward me. I was out of grasp apparently. He gurgled and bared his teeth in pain before his hand dropped to the concrete with a feeble splash. He was dead. A pool of blood spread out from him, blending with the already present water.

What _did_ this to him?

I startled as I heard a trashcan clatter from somewhere behind me. Was his killer still here? I could feel eyes burning into my back. There was no doubt. I wasn't alone. My every instinct told me to run, get out of here, this instant. Flight, not fight. But I was frozen to the spot. Did I dare move and draw more interest to myself, or stay motionless and hope that whoever they are go away.

I was at a cross-road where either option could mean my death. I've been lucky so far, but was my luck about to run out?

I've been in this situation often enough to know what I should do: just what the killer doesn't expect me to. I picked that middle road, that third path, and jumped.

**How is it so far? Review! Francis, being the intellectual mind he is, just had to run through all his options. His brain just wouldn't shut up! XD The next few chapters will hopefully explain what just happened. If you've seen both Felidae and Darker Than Black, it shouldn't too hard to figure out. **

**I was listening to the most unfitting music while typing this. Acid Black Cherry's song Spell Magic has absolutely nothing to do with this story, but it's a really good song. ;)**


	3. Chapter 3

**I apologize for the very late update. It's been almost a year O.O' Whoops XD ****School takes up a lot of my time, so I don't have much time to write *cries***

**I'll give a warning here: don't freak out about the "gibberish" dialogue. I'll translate at the end, don't worry. I intentionally want it to be illegible.**

My initial assumption had been correct in that my opponent hadn't counted on me turning and attacking. He gave a yell of surprise as I landed on top on him, pinning him to the ground. He thrashed spontaneously, actually managing to catch me in the muzzle with a hard foot. That slight moment of lapsed concentration was all he needed to wriggle out from under me. I was prepared to fight again, but he seemed to have no interest. He just sat there calmly licking a paw.

He was a member of my own kind, a fellow Felidae, and clearly not the killer of the can-opener. He seemed unfazed by our scuffle and watched my with neutral curiosity. He was a black brother, solidly colored and built. His fur was short like mine, and not of any recognizable breed. The only things that stood out about him were his blood-red collar and pale lavender eyes. It was only when he shook a drop of rain from his ear did I notice the small silver tag embedded in one of edges.

He sat calmly, watching me for a moment before bringing his paw to his tongue and giving a haste rub to his muzzle. I thought perhaps he was simply too stupid to speak, but I was quickly proven wrong.

"あなた は 誰 です か? あなた の なまえ は なん です か？ぼくはマオです," he paused, likely due to blank look that was sure to be pasted across my face. "あなたはにほんごをはなしますか？あなたは何語を話すのですか？イタリア語？ふらんすご？" He started to become flustered by my lack of understanding. "あなた は 話す できます か？" He sighed and started to turn away.

"Sprechen Sie Deutsch?" I offered. The black furred brother looked back, but this time it was his turn to tilt his head in confusion.

"What about English?" I tried again. His purple eyes lit up in understanding this time and he paced a bit closer to me.

"The name's Francis. I don't believe you've introduced yourself." I took a few nonthreatening steps closer to this anomaly of a cat.

"Actually I have," he stated indignantly. "My name is Mao." I couldn't ward off the chuckle that rose up in my throat. _Meow? What kind of name was that?_

"What's so funny?"

"Your name…" I broke off into another fit of laughter. "I bet your mother laughed her sweet whiskers off when she bestowed that sardonic name upon you."

The black brother shook his head in annoyance.

"First of all, Mao is only an alias. My real name is Ricardo, but I haven't been called that in years. I prefer my codename. Secondly, my mother wasn't a cat. I assure you, she did NOT have whiskers."

"What do mean, not a cat? You look like a member of the Felidae family to me," I almost pounced on him, demanding an explanation.

"I'm a Contractor. I was originally a man, but I'm now occupying this body for the time being. My human body was destroyed in an explosion and I can only possess animals."

"What's a Contractor?" I felt that this piece of information was vital to my understanding of this brother's past.

"You can't be serious?" Mao's eyes widened as he gave a look of awe. "You really don't know? Where are you from?"

"I moved here from Germany today," I answered. The black brother seemed to think this over for a while.

"I could understand if you were in a rural city without much access to the outside world. What about the Gates? Do you know about them?"

I shook my head. This was all so unfamiliar. What else was going on in the world that I had no clue about?

"I guess I'll have to explain this to you. Ten years ago, there was an occurrence which caused Hell's Gate here in Tokyo and Heaven's Gate in South America to appear. No one really knows how or why, it just happened. With the appearance of the Gates, beings called Contractors, as well as Dolls, began to emerge as well.

Contractors are people who have special abilities granted by the Gates, but the abilities also come with a payment. Contractors are rational beings that never make decisions based on emotions, so they won't hesitate to kill anyone who gets in their way."

"Why didn't you kill me then, if you are a 'Contractor'?" I questioned, suddenly unsure of my own safety.

"There was no reason to. In other words, I wouldn't benefit from your death."

"That's reassuring," I stated, sarcasm dripping from my voice. "So was that person a Contractor too?" I gestured toward the wet and bloody corpse that still lay relatively close to us.

"Yes. He was a member of a rival Syndicate and was killed for being a double-agent. No real loss," Mao replied indifferently.

"No real loss? Does this happen often?" I was aghast.

"On a daily basis. This isn't the same world you came from. Here, death is a common occurrence. No gives a second look anymore-" Mao cut off and his gaze focused behind me.

I turned as well, and caught sight of the same thing he saw. A human, dressed in a black trench coat and having equally black hair, stood just a few meters down the alley from me. I nearly jumped out of my fur, having heard not even the slightest sound that would have betrayed his appearance.

The man walked past me, paying me no heed, fortunately. He dropped to his knees beside the corpse and rolled the dead man unto his back. The man in black pulled aside the man's shirt, revealing a deep knife wound just below the ribcage, clearly the cause of death.

"I'm surprised he managed to get so far away with an injury like this," Mao stated as he joined the man's side. "Usually no one can escape you, Hei."

"The mission is complete. I'm going back," the man, Hei, told Mao. It seemed as though those two were partners, or at least acquainted somehow. Mao trotted beside the dark-haired man as he left the alley, but stopped and looked back at me. The man did the same.

"A friend of yours?" the man asked, to which the Contractor cat only rolled his lavender eyes.

"Do you know your way around the city, Francis?" Mao directed the question at me.

"No, I was actually trying to find my way back when I ran into you. My companion lives in a small apartment complex that seems to house foreigners," I supplied.

"I think I know the place you're talking about. Why don't you follow us? It's better than staying here regardless."

I wasn't about to pass up that offer.

**~I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to include sexy collarbones Hei in this story, even though the main characters are Mao and Francis.**

**I hope this wasn't too disappointing, mostly dialogue. At least Francis knows about what the heck is going on with Contractors. Feel free to leave a comment (Yes, I do read those. That's why I'm continuing this story).**

**Here's what was said (I personally don't know German, that's why there's only one line):**

**Mao (Japanese): "Who are you? What's your name? I'm Mao." "Do you speak Japanese? What languages **_**do**_** you speak? Italian? French?" "Can you speak?"**

**Francis (German): "Do you speak German?"**


End file.
